Flights of Understanding
by astrokath
Summary: Choosing to stand as a candidate is the last free choice a rider ever makes. But they say the rewards are worth it... [Original Characters]


**Passinth and A'bree**

A'bree left the barracks at a run, cheeks flaming with shame and cock even harder than ever. He could still hear Weyrlingmaster S'tirro's laughter, still see him practically weeping with mirth in his mind's eye, and Passinth was no help at all!

"I thought there was something _wrong_ with me, you shameless brown brute!" he yelled as his dragon landed lightly on the ground. "But it was _you_ all along!"

_I thought you knew_, the dragon said simply. _You think of Lannath's rider most nights._

A'bree spluttered a denial.

_You were thinking about him just this morning_, Passinth countered. _And I'm sure you'll think about him tomorrow as well. It's all so silly! Besides, you seemed to be enjoying yourself well enough. I thought you were… getting in the mood?_

Eight times, he'd attempted to relieve the intensity of the lust that was still burgeoning within him. _Eight!_ And it might have eased the pressure for a little while, but it hadn't fardling put a stop to it. "Well I'm fardling well in a mood now!" he snapped. And his cock was fucking sore, to boot.

_Are you? You seem more angry than anything else._ The brown dipped his head towards his rider, eyes whirling red in sympathy. A'bree could feel Passinth's thoughts questing towards him, slipping through the cracks of his emotions. _I can be angry_, the dragon said. _Do you need me to be angry?_

_No_, A'bree thought back sullenly, knowing the answer was inadequate. _No, I don't. _

_I just don't understand why you didn't understand in the first place_, Passinth said,_ but now I think you're just being silly. And I don't like it when you're silly, so I'm going to fly Lannath and then you'll see how ridiculous you're being._

Passinth had been right about that part... though not about _catching_ Lannath. But for a while, it hadn't actually mattered. Several sevendays after Lannath's flight, A'bree had summoned up enough courage to prove to R'nar how he really felt. And it had been good, _really_ good. Not just the sex, but all of the other things, too: the smell of R'nar's skin, his voice, the way his hips jerked ever so slightly side-to-side as he walked. It didn't take long to fall in love.

At least, that's what A'bree had thought it was. Only Passinth kept telling him it wasn't, that R'nar wasn't right for him, didn't love him properly back. And by the time Turnover came around, the brown almost seemed resentful of the time A'bree spent with the greenrider. Sometimes, it spilled out into A'bree himself, and he'd find himself yelling at his lover for no good reason at all. So he stopped Passinth from chasing other greens, trying to prove his love for rider and dragon both. If Passinth could catch Lannath, then R'nar would know for sure how devoted A'bree was to him, and wouldn't leave him like he'd threatened. And, if Passinth could catch Lannath, then the dragon, too, would soon feel the way A'bree did about his weyrmate.

_Are you ready?_ he asked Passinth, feeling the boiling rage of fresh blood in his mouth and mind and loins. All too soon he'd feel only what his brown felt: that, and nothing else. He smothered the fear that that prospect always, inevitably, evoked. He'd be Passinth, and Passinth would be him, and the only escape from his dragon's mind would be to lose himself in it entirely, and hope that it was worth it in the end. _We're going to catch them this time, aren't we? You and I?_

Passinth regarded him across the wide, blood-stained expanse of the feeding grounds, eyes blazing, muscles tensed in readiness to spring into flight. _Yes_, the dragon said. _Yes._

But to A'bree's mind, it sounded an awful lot like _you still don't understand._

**Jennis and Callioth**

Jennis sat down on the lip of her queen's ledge, and clutched the thin blanket more tightly around her. It wasn't really warm enough to keep the chill at bay, but she hadn't wanted to risk disturbing B'nak by taking one of the others. Before her, the Weyrbowl lay subdued, the weak light of late afternoon glinting off colourful hides in varying shades of brown, green and blue. There were no bronzes to be seen, of course. The stronger ones were still to return to the Weyr, but when they did they'd slink back to their couches just as swiftly as the rest.

The weyrwoman closed her eyes, remembering the long and wearying pursuit that she and her queen had led them on. _Control her!_ she'd been taught, but she hadn't had a hope. Control? No, that had never been anything more than a convenient conceit, a tried and tested means of encouraging inexperienced weyrwomen to give themselves utterly to their queens, with nothing held back in reserve. She'd imposed her human will as best she could, then felt it seized upon, channelled, re-forged. If it hadn't been her own beloved Callioth at the heart of it, the whole experience would have been utterly terrifying. The bronzeriders, more beast than man. Their dragons, hurtling through the sky behind her. The power and drive she sensed from them, the need to master her and her queen in flight, to be found worthy by the glorious, strange duality that she had now become.

Jennis shuddered, remembering. Jarrath and B'nak had won them in the end. Jarrath, who was strong and swift and sure… and B'nak, who was brilliant and implacable, and everything she loathed in a man. She remembered the touch of them both as their shared union began, the choosing that was no real choice at all, the force of Callioth's pleasure, and her own. She'd never felt so good before, and it really, truly wasn't fair! And oh, Faranth, but she wanted to be flown by them again!

"Sixteenth-mark for your thoughts, weyrwoman?"

She looked towards the steps, and saw D'nan making his way towards her, a heavy fur in his arms. "A thirty-second's the usual rate, isn't it?" she replied acerbically.

"Ah, but I value your thoughts more highly than most," he said, draping the fur around her with a flourish. "Llioroth said you were feeling a bit cold."

"If only everyone was as perceptive as Llioroth!" she said, though of course it was only natural that the Weyr's dragons would all be acutely aware of her, at least until Callioth and Jarrath returned. "Shard it, D'nan, you didn't even _try_!"

"Jen, love…" He sat down beside her, resisting her attempts to shove him away. "Be honest. You didn't even miss me, and you know it. Or Llio."

"Of course I mi-"

"Not after she'd blooded, Jen. I was there, remember?"

She stared him straight in the eyes, but there were no lies in his clear green gaze. He'd been with her right from the start...right up until the point when she'd pushed him away, mocking him for his audacity in thinking his blue could ever be worthy enough even to make an attempt. She'd been Callioth then, she told herself, she wasn't to blame for what she'd said.

"You're a weyrwoman, Jennis." D'nan's voice was soft, and infinitely forgiving. "Llioroth and I, we're yours, body and spirit, for as long as we live. But you and Callioth… you were never to be ours."

"No," she breathed, sharp tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. It had always been a foolish hope. No blue had ever caught a healthy queen, and with the fourth Pass only half a dozen turns away, it would have been a singularly bad precedent to set now. She was a weyrwoman, and she had responsibilities: to Callioth, and to all of Pern.

_Oh, Faranth_, she thought to herself as she realised the truth. Callioth loved her utterly, and would never have demanded such a sacrifice of her. And so, in the end, she'd had to find the will to make it herself.

She wept then, while D'nan held her close, but try as she might she couldn't spare Callioth from hearing her pain. _I'm sorry, love_, she told her beloved queen._ I didn't mean to-_

_ My Jennis! _

Callioth might still have been thirty-odd miles away, but it did nothing to lessen the strength of her love, or her concern for her rider's roiling emotions. Before Jennis had space to think, her queen was fully with her, unravelling their disparate, twinned hearts, exposing the deep core of tenderness that her drawn her to Jennis even before she'd cracked shell. Of _course_ Jarrath had been the right bronze to fly them, but for all of his virtues - and those of his rider - B'nak was not a person that Callioth would inflict on her rider beyond the necessities of her own mating. And those were dealt with now, so if Jennis wanted B'nak to leave, she would inform Jarrath of that fact right away, if her rider wished it. Only, perhaps Jennis would prefer to leave him to his snores? Because…

_Because what?_ Jennis asked.

_ Because D'nan sees you as I do. _

There were no further words in what Callioth told her next, just trust, and understanding. The flight had changed them both, bringing woman and dragon closer together than they'd ever been before. Jennis had flown as a queen, and Callioth had been with her, with B'nak, their paired minds resonating with a pleasure that could never be matched. And what had been left behind, after the inferno had burned itself out? What wouldn't they do for one another, loving as they did?

Jennis shifted in D'nan's arms, and raised a hand to his face. "Oh D'nan, you were right! I don't regret what we did at all. Jarrath and B'nak, they're the right choice for the Weyr, the right choice for Callioth, and maybe even for me. And I should have seen it sooner, the way you did."

His eyes darkened as she spoke, and she could feel the tension of deep emotion in the muscles of his arm. "Weyrwoman…"

"Jennis," she said firmly. "I know that _Callioth_ and I can never be yours...but might not the two of us be each others?"

And with her queen's unconditional approval shining in her heart, she brought her lips to his.

* * *

><p>AN: Written for palmedfire for Yuletide 2014<p> 


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